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The New Race to Space.


Mad Mardigan

Race to space.  

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  1. 1. Race to space.

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To test your enthusiasm to communicate perhaps you could elaborate on your idea of resource ownership. You seem to be operating from a view point of strictly limited resources. A matter of a cake of fixed size which can only be divided so many ways. I don't agree. There may be limited quantities of such materials as oil and natural minerals' date=' but intellectual resources can be unlimited and overcome such Malthusian constraints.

 

Any comments?[/quote']Very good point and yes, my arguments are very much based upon limited resources, if we restrict ourselves to a single planet.

 

I'm not sure I would characterise intellectual resources as unlimited, but I certainly agree they offer such enormous potential that we might, for discussion purposes, consider them unlimited. And I also agree with your implication that it was the application of such intellectual resources that has allowed us to forestall the apocalypse predicted by Malthus.

 

And we have done this by making more efficient use of the available resources. In some instance this has meant discovering new resources - I believe petroleum would have been a medicinal curiosity to Malthus, not a source of power and chemcial foodstock.

But we are, nevertheless, working with strictly finite resources. We are using the known resources up at an accelerating and unsustainable rate. I fully appreciate that we can delay the 'day of reckoning', if I may use a dramatic phrase, by employing our intellectual resources to discover knew physical resources and to make more efficient use of the existing ones.

 

You may also have in mind that proper application of those same intellectual resources may lead to a reduced demand upon the physical ones, by reducing world population and following more 'mellow' lifestyles. I would agree with all of that, but it still leaves us with a finite resource level. Off-planet, meanwhile, we have resources that are also limited, but whose limits are very much larger than those which presently constrain us.

 

I am arguing for a more intelligent use of our resources, as a species and as part of an integrated biosphere (I didn't say Gaia), while simultaneously expanding our potential by employing a small proportion of those resources, intellectual and physical, to gain access to the vastly more resource rich and intellectually stimulating expanses of space.

 

[Note 1: I have not addressed resource ownership per se. It is not a central issue to this argument and I'm comfortable arguing either side, and the middle, of that deabte.

Note 2: I concede that if our intellectual resources were to enable us, for example, to tap vacuum-point energy, then many/most/all of my arguments are nullified. However, I prefer to put my money on the technologically challenging, but feasible move into space, rather than a hypothetical energy cornucopia.]

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Perhaps if you analyse your scifi interests you will see the true motive behind your desire for man to pursue space travel research.

Really, and what's that?

 

Orion slave girls maybe? Or perhaps you think I want to play with phasers?

Do you really think anyone on here is under such juvenile delusions about their own longevity that they support space tourism for purely selfish reasons?

 

Yeah Sorcerer, we're all sitting here salivating while we wait for the Starfleet admissions office to call :rolleyes:

 

Grow the frak up. I've already given excellent reasons why I support this move, and you were not able to refute them. If you can't bow out with some dignity, don't say anything at all.

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Perhaps if you analyse your scifi interests you will see the true motive behind your desire for man to pursue space travel research.

 

You are of course....correct. One who has a mind accepting of the possibilities defined in Science Fiction will likely be far more interested in exploration of the "Final Frontier". Does this in itself deminish the prospects of this line of research/exploration, I would have to say no. It is akin to mathematics, in that one who understands algebra, is more likely to have interest in geometry, and from there may persue descriptive, and from there.....who knows, maybe the next Hawking. Imagination, and thus Sci Fi to a certain extent could be argued as a fundamental neccessity in the quest for knowledge. Without those visionaries, who decided to explore the realms of imagination.....where would we be today?

 

Certainly not contemplating the commercial aspects of human space travel.

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you know what i cant condone? a multi billion dollar space program in the us when we still have problems on earth. terrorism threatens our very way of life. blobal warming threatens our comfort and existance. hunger, povertyy, disease.

And I hope you're very glad that Queen Isabella didn't think that way. ;)

 

We may be on the dawn of a new age, but we must be realistic. The next explorers will not be like Cook or Magellan, our technology is far too primitive for that. For a paralell we must look further back. Back to when Ugh first used a log to find out what was on the other side of the river.

 

And I'll bet that there were people then who argued that he was wasting valuable firewood. :)

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hey you know what oxygen and hydrogen when burned produce water which makes the world happy.

 

I sort of skipped to posting after the third page and decided to skip the flame war

 

 

however space tourism will allow for the technoligy and knowhow to advance to where other corporations will start mining the nea's

 

guess what that means

 

we will bring in resources

 

no more strip mining which releases toxic fumes, no more high mineral prices. prices will drop to about the cost of shipping. which means the earth will be a good place to live because everything will be cheaper compared to the amount of money people are making

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Space travel would be exceptionally sensational. Just imagine how beautiful it would be. The anti-gravity experience would also be fun although some may not be used to it. Space travel would be some experience out of the ordinary. And i guess it would not come cheap. So, it is quite a "prized" experience.

 

Well, if there is anyone who reads science-fiction books by ben bova, i'm pretty sure visiting space would be FUN.

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Well, if there is anyone who reads science-fiction books by ben bova, i'm pretty sure visiting space would be FUN.

 

Ben Bova is writing some of the most scientifically illiterate and illinformed fiction ever. In addition his prose is dull, clumsy, and repetitive. I have never been interested in what happens to any of his characters (caricatures), and his plot, narrative fails to grip the attention. In short, he is crap. ;)

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Ben Bova is writing some of the most scientifically illiterate and illinformed fiction ever. In addition his prose is dull, clumsy, and repetitive. I have never been interested in what happens to any of his characters (caricatures), and his plot, narrative fails to grip the attention. In short, he is crap. ;)

 

Well, his books are fantasy. Yet, i feel something for it even though the plot can be quite predictable at times. Reading it makes me wanna go space travelling tough.

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Well, you are almost on the equator, so perhaps you can work on persuading Lee Hsien Loong to make Singapore the site of the first sky hook. They are the best chance we have of making space travel affordable.[img']http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif[/img]

 

ha ha... :)

 

But how does being near to the equator helpful in space travelling? I thought is doesn't matter where the launch is?

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ha ha... :)

 

But how does being near to the equator helpful in space travelling? I thought is doesn't matter where the launch is?

 

you get an extra boost by being closer to the equater. basicaly, you have more centrifugal force, because you are going faster than say at the north pole.

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you get an extra boost by being closer to the equater. basicaly, you have more centrifugal force, because you are going faster than say at the north pole.

 

Oh. that's is so cool. So, has such talks about space launches started between countries? It would be so cool to have rockets launched in Singapore !

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There is some confusion here. It is true that being on the equator means you require less of a velocity increase to achieve orbit because you are already going faster than at higher latitudes. That's why the European Ariane rockets are launched from South America and the shuttle from Florida, not Maine.

 

But I was proposing a sky hook, or Jacob's ladder, or space elevator, in which a cable is suspended from space and is so sized and positioned that its centre of gravity is in geosyncrhonous orbit, so that it stays above the same spot on the Earth' surface. You can then run loads up and down the cable at a fraction of the cost of current launch methods.

Sounds like science fiction? After originally being proposed by a Russian in the early 1960's it was popularised by two SF author's, Arthur C.Clarke and Charles Sheffield. It would be a huge technical challenge, but is should be practical, I would hope before the end of the century.

 

If you want to know more look here:

http://www.spaceelevator.com/

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every mission sent to space is a scientific journy even if the purpose if fun, every time u go into space something differant will happen minor or major nad we need to learn by trial and error and the more we launch the more we learn. We are still space infants like cavemen building a boat to go where they have no clue what the conditions and elements will do or if u will survive but in my opinion I would rather die there than old and livin in a place that does not take full advantage of its potential.

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Every journey into space is a part of the trial and error process we need to complete in order to learn what not to do we stil havent sent people to mars cause we dont know what wil happen to their biology, pshycology and the spacecraft. We need to build more get more entity's involved in this cause I think commercial space travel will surpass any other motivation for space advancement because once we learn to profit from space (minning, extracting rare element's) our planet will change dramaticly and the sooner we get one form of comercial space transit the resy will follow suit.

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There is some confusion here. It is true that being on the equator means you require less of a velocity increase to achieve orbit because you are already going faster than at higher latitudes. That's why the European Ariane rockets are launched from South America and the shuttle from Florida' date=' not Maine.

 

But I was proposing a sky hook, or Jacob's ladder, or space elevator, in which a cable is suspended from space and is so sized and positioned that its centre of gravity is in geosyncrhonous orbit, so that it stays above the same spot on the Earth' surface. You can then run loads up and down the cable at a fraction of the cost of current launch methods.

Sounds like science fiction? After originally being proposed by a Russian in the early 1960's it was popularised by two SF author's, Arthur C.Clarke and Charles Sheffield. It would be a huge technical challenge, but is should be practical, I would hope before the end of the century.

 

If you want to know more look here:

http://www.spaceelevator.com/

 

 

man, that cable would weight so much that it would probably drag down the craft that was holding it up.

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man, that cable would weight so much that it would probably drag down the craft that was holding it up.

with present materials yes way to heavy, but nano technology I am certain will make structural engineering take a quantum leap, they geneticly altered a goat to produce a spider web material. Soon they will be able to surpass the quality of natural spider web which is very strong and ultra light I have always said carbon can do anything lol

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man, that cable would weight so much that it would probably drag down the craft that was holding it up.
I'm not sure if you are being ironic or serious. The centre of mass of the cable is located at the geosynchronous orbit position. There is nothing 'holding it up' in the sense you imply.

Carbon nano-tubes can deliver the necessary strength. All we have to do is figure out how to produce them in sufficient length and that is just a technical problem.

I think we could even have a rudimentary elevator before we land on Mars. The estimated costs to build one are almost an order of magnitude less than a Mars mission.

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